(TRIVIA) Most indirect through train

[Peter Bonner]

Not when there is a direct service from New Street to either Edinburgh or Glasgow every hour by whoever took over from Virgin. OK, run the XC's to Newcastle but whats the point of sending all these passengers so far out their way to get from the south and south west to Scotland? Privatisation and ticketing again working against the public interest?

Dont forget Derby and Sheffield wd lose direct service to Scotland if all XC services terminated at Newcastle.

 

[dk1]

Not when there is a direct service from New Street to either Edinburgh or Glasgow every hour by whoever took over from Virgin. OK, run the XC's to Newcastle but whats the point of sending all these passengers so far out their way to get from the south and south west to Scotland? Privatisation and ticketing again working against the public interest?

I suppose it's very few if any end to end and gives the likes of Derby & Sheffield a direct service north of Edinburgh. Agreed that the split in 2007 had its downside with the loss of through journeys from the northern half of the WCML to many destinations on the XC network.

 

[SwindonBert]

St Budeux Victoria road to St Budeaux Ferry road, although theres no fare

Is there still a direct train, I can't see one going from Gunnislake to Penzance. If you can, it would win easily.

 

[kieron]

The Far North line between Ardgay and Golspie and again from Helmsdale to Thurso and Wick is way longer than by road. The legacy of landlowners with far too much power, probably the descendants of the Duke of Sutherland and likes responsible for the Highland Clearances that blighted the area.

Is it? Wikipedia says the Helmsdale-Wick section was built on that route to avoid the Berriedale Braes, and the massive amount of civil engineering you'd need to build a railway through that area. The railway follows the Strath of Kildonan instead, which is relatively flat. They did build a railway line to Lybster, but that went NW to Wick rather than SE to Helmsdale.

Dornoch also used to be served by a railway going north from there, and I can't see which way a railway could go from Ardgay. They did consider diverting the railway across the Dornoch Firth Bridge when they were planning it in the 1980s, which could have saved up to 45 minutes on the journey, but they decided against it.

For some figures on the detours the Far North Line takes (road figures from freemaptools.com, and I don't know what assumptions they make for road travel):
Wick-Helmsdale: 30.4m air, 35.9m road, 60 rail (97% or 67% further).
Golspie-Tain: 11.1m air, 16.6m road, 40.25m rail (263% or 142% further).
Invergordon-Inverness: 14.5m air, 24.3m road, 31.5m rail (117% or 30% further).

The road also takes a circuitous route north of Inverness as they decided not to build the Cromarty Bridge too close to Cromarty.

If you're going between Barrow and Carlisle I'd say that the direct train along the coast is a sensible route as you don't need to worry about changing trains. It's quicker to change at Lancaster but is it actually more convenient?

The tickets are also much cheaper that way. I would say that is a strong argument for "normal" people using it by itself.

An indirect route with a different history is Altincham-Manchester Piccadilly. It's 7.9 miles by air, 9.4 by road and 15.25 by rail (94% or 61% further) as the direct line was repurposed for Metrolink.

 

[Springs Branch]

Off and on in recent years Northern have operated through trains on Sundays between Southport and Chester via Bolton, Manchester Pic and Stockport.

The roundabout route is 83½ miles, versus 36 miles travelling on Merseyrail & changing at Liverpool Central, or 31½ miles as the crow flies.

What was unusual with this case was that a ticket from Southport to Chester (or vice versa) was not valid on the through trains. Tickets are routed "via Birkenhead" and no "Any Permitted" version is available.

 

[transmanche]

Would be much quicker although the train would lose the bulk of its purpose and patronage.

Not when there is a direct service from New Street to either Edinburgh or Glasgow every hour by whoever took over from Virgin. OK, run the XC's to Newcastle but whats the point of sending all these passengers so far out their way to get from the south and south west to Scotland?

This is just another example of the thinking that rail services only exist for passengers travelling from one end of the route to another. The train's purpose isn't to carry "all those passengers from the south and south west to Scotland" is it? Especially when those journeys can be be done faster by different routes.

Cast your mind back to 2011 when the Eureka timetable was introduced on the ECML. This is when East Coast stopped serving Glasgow (apart from a token daily service). XC became the main operator from the ECML to Glasgow, with a service every two hours. This is now the main direct service for passengers from the East Midlands/Yorkshire/North East to Glasgow. That is one of the purposes of the XC train - not for people travelling all the way from Penzance to Glasgow.

Privatisation and ticketing again working against the public interest?

Er no, not this time.

One of the consequences if the Eureka timetable was that XC services wouldn't stop at Chester-le-Street, it would be served by TPE instead. When the new timetable was introduced, someone wrote into the regional newspaper complaining that XAhC no longer called at Chester-le-Street because Arriva wanted to promote their limited-stop Durham-Newcastle bus service. (Completely ignoring the fact that the main bus operator between Chester-le-Street and Newcastle is Go North East, with Arriva operating far fewer buses.) He thought this was an evil Arriva plot to force passengers from their trains onto their buses, thus making more money for Arriva.

Ah, conspiracy theories are so much more fun than the simple truth...

 

[DJBut]

How do you work out distance by rail?

A worthwhile site is http://rmme.railmiles.me/ This RailMiles website works fine but is scheduled to be replaced at the end of April 2020.